


Notification

by VampirePaladin



Category: Doom (2005)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:57:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4696538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/pseuds/VampirePaladin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone had to notify the families of the fallen Marines.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notification

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amathela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/gifts).



The little girl sat in front of the communication terminal. On the screen was the face of her father. He was smiling, the way he smiled only for her.

“Hi, sweetie, my leave was delayed a few days. I have to go help some people, but I’ll be back home soon. We can go out for ice cream and you can have all the toppings you want. Behave for your grandma.”

The little girl smiled and rewound it back to the beginning for the fifth time.

The doorbell rang.

“Rachel, can you go answer the door for me,” her grandmother called from upstairs. She moved slowly and if she was too far away she couldn’t answer the door in time.

“Okay, Gram.” She paused the video of her dad and ran to the front door.

She pushed the button to turn on the external camera. There was a man standing out there wearing a marine uniform. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. She recognized his uniform as the one for the marines that worked with her father.

Turning off the camera, she unlocked the door.

“Hi,” he smiled at her, “is your mother home?”

“I don’t have a mommy. I just have Daddy and Gram. Daddy is coming home soon and we are going to go have ice cream and mine is going to have rainbow and chocolate sprinkles.”

His smile flickered on his face but soon came back. “Can you go get your Gram for me then?”

“Okay.” She shut the door and ran off to get her grandmother.

The door opened a minute later. A frail older woman stood there. She looked at the marine at her doorstep and her face paled.

“Are you related to Gunnery Sergeant Asher Mahonin?”

“I’m his mother.”

“I’m Staff Sergeant John Grimm.”

“Where is my son?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Sergeant Mahonin died while on mission.”

The woman closed her eyes. Her frail hands clutched tightly at the door frame, trying to keep herself upright.

“How did he die?”

“He was a hero.” John told the same lie he had given since leaving the facility. “He detonated a grenade to kill a group of enemy soldiers, saved my life.” The official cover story was that a group of fanatics had infiltrated on Mars. That they had slaughtered most of the civilians and it was the brave marines that had stopped them from escaping with dangerous new weapons.

She said nothing.

“I have these for you.” He held out a small case and a folded up flag. In the case was a purple heart and a medal.

“Thank you.” The woman let go of the doorframe to take the flag and case. She held them gently, like a newborn baby, but she didn’t bring them too close, like that baby was carrying a deadly virus. Without another word the woman shut the door.

John stood there and stared at the shut door. Slowly he slid his right foot behind him and turned back toward the street. Sitting in the car was Samantha, his sister.

She leant forward in the driver’s seat ever so slightly. Her gaze fixed with his, her silent question between them: Why?

He walked back to the car. His feet felt pinched in the shined dress shoes. The pants itched. The coat was too stiff. He focused his mind on those trivial pains from a uniform that hadn’t been worn in so long and now was just slightly off in its fit. John yanked the passenger side door open and sank into the seat. He pulled the door closed behind himself as an afterthought.

Samantha looked at him and then started the engine. She didn’t say anything for the first ten minutes of the drive.

“You lied to her too.”

John didn’t say anything.

“Why?”

“Sarge is dead. If anyone knew the truth, that he was killing clean people, before he was infected, his mother, his little girl, they’d lose his pension. Besides, she should remember her father as a good man.”

“Do you think he was a good man?”

There was that time that Sarge had run into a hail of bullets to pull an unconscious Mac back to safety. There was the time that Sarge had shot Kid between the eyes for disobeying an unlawful order. Back in Schertz, Sarge convinced enemy militia to let all of the civilians go. On Mars Sarge killed all the civilians.

“I don’t know.” His voice cracked.

There was still everyone else on the list; Destroyer always had his back, Goat was always ready with a quote from scripture, Portman had something to say about anything, Duke would talk about this or that beautiful girl he had met, Mac quietly smiling at the others as he focused on the equipment, the Kid, so new that he didn’t even have a chance to properly earn a nickname. All of them were gone.

Dead.

John turned his head away from Samantha. He focused on the passing scenery. 

Everything had happened so fast. There had been the inquiry where they had told the truth about almost everything, changing only how soon Sarge was infected. The cover story about a fringe militia group attacking had been concocted. This was the first time since leaving Earth that John had the time to even think about things.

Samantha pulled off the main road, onto a side one and parked under a tree. She stared at him. Her eyes soft.

“It’s alright. There is no one here to see.”

John let it all out. He cried. Samantha unbuckled her seat belt and wrapped him in her arms. He might have been the physically stronger of the two, but ever since they were children he felt safe in her arms.

“I’m here, John. I’m right here and I’ll always be here.”

She kissed him on the lips. It wasn’t the kiss one would expect a sister to give her brother, but the kiss of an old lover reunited under poor circumstances. She wasn’t going to deny their feelings for each other now, not when her brother needed her so much.

“I promise,” she whispered as she stroked his hair with her fingers.


End file.
